Five of the kidnapped Irish participants in the #FreedomWaves to
Gaza mission will return home on flight LH982 (from Frankfurt) at
11.40pm on Thursday 10th November.
Mags O'Brien, John Mallon, Trevor Hogan, Hugh Lewis and Patrick
Fitzgerald have all been illegally held by the Israeli state since
Friday afternoon after being violently abducted in international waters
while attempting to break the illegal siege and sailing to the
blockaded Gaza Strip.
The Irish Ship To Gaza campaign is organising a welcoming committee
to meet them at Terminal 1 in Dublin Airport, and asking people to
gather there at around 11.30pm to be there when they come through the
gates.
For the latest update on the current situation regarding the Irish
#FreedomWaves prisoners -- who have been subjected to intense
intimidation by the Israeli state in an effort to break their spirits -- please see here.
****
UPDATE 1, 10 Nov 2011:
Irish Activists Again Stopped From Leaving Israel
Posted by Kev
Two leading Irish human rights activists were prevented for a
second time today from flying home from Israel, in the latest strange
twist to the protracted homecoming saga of Ireland's #FreedomWaves
campaigners.
They were among the 14 Irish passengers of the MV Saoirse, hijacked
in international waters last Friday on a humanitarian mission to Gaza.
The seven people who had earlier been stopped from flying out on a
morning British Airways flight were returned to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion
Airport this afternoon to take a Lufthansa flight. However, only five
of them departed, with two -- Irish Ship to Gaza co-ordinator Fintan
Lane and Limerick university lecturer Zoe Lawlor -- being returned to
Israeli custody.
The Irish Ship to Gaza campaign understands that these developments caught Irish consular officials by surprise.
"We had been informed by the Irish consular mission that seven Irish
citizens, held in Israel since last Friday, were placed on a Lufthansa
flight home bound," spokesperson Claudia Saba said this afternoon.
"However, a few minutes later we got a call saying that the bus that
had gone out to the plane with seven passengers then returned with two
of them still on it."
Campaigners were told by Irish officials that Lane and Lawlor had
boarded the flight, but were then removed and "returned to their
holding cells" at the airport.
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